Down Undah! Part1

  Melbourne to alice springs, Australia
Sunday, July 1, 2007

And so to Australia. We have only been here about 10 days and already it has been more amazingly fabulous than we could ever have imagined. Judging by our experiences thus far it wouldn't be possible to cram it all into one blog entry, so here is part one, Melbourne to Alice Springs Airport via a certain large rock along the way.

Before we begin, thanks for all your comments on the last entry, we really enjoyed reading them- keep 'em coming! Lots of you were intrigued by the toilet in Japan, another fine example of where man has been replaced by the machine... the ladies rooms of nicer hotels and restaurant offer the visitor a choice of musak to be played whilst doing ones business to drown out any unwanted noises that may occur. Or, if that is too obvious, one can choose the noise of the toilet constantly flushing. It sure made a change from the holes in the ground of Hong Kong and Beijing...Apologies if you are reading this over breakfast but the toilet theme continues. Barry was excited about travelling to Australia to see the toilets flush in the other direction, now that we were entering t'other hemisphere. However, we couldn't remember which way they flushed at home so we are not sure if it is different. Video clips of your flushing jax welcome so that we can compare!

We arrived in Sydney airport from Thailand on 19th June. Loads of you have been to Australia so you will know all about the length of the flight, but we found it tough, and it must have been even tougher for the 6 foot 10 inch man sitting a few seats behind us at the mercy of British Airways hospitality. They don't make planes for the likes of him anymore! Immigration in Sydney was a long process- they are very careful about keeping foreign food and insect type things out of the country, even cleaning some guys' boots of mud that had accumulated on them in his previous destination! We spent the night in Sydney in a hotel in The Rocks which is where the first convicts landed when the English Government decided that Australia was an appropriate place to bring their criminals- who cares about the people already living here? Let's dump all our criminals on them!!
The following morning we got the train from Sydney to Melbourne, it was a 13 hour journey, but enjoyable seeing the scenery and stopping in places with great names such as Wagga Wagga. While Sydney had been really cold and wet, the weather en route to Melbourne was bright and sunny and it was lovely to watch the sunset whilst listening to good tunes on the oul ipod. We spent our first 2 nights in Melbourne in the Central Business District.

Melbourne Night

Melbourne is a fabulous city, and we walked the length and breadth of it in those 2 days, from the immigration museum, which illustrated the creation of a 'white Australia' over the last 150 years at the expense of the aborigines; to the Melbourne museum where they have the set of the Robinsons kitchen from Neighbours along with loads of Neighbours triv (the real Ramsay Street has people from 22 different ethnic backgrounds living on it); and Lygon street which is just packed with on-street restaurants and cafes.
On the Friday night we went to an Australian Rules game in the Melbourne Cricket Ground; Richmond V Melbourne. We didn't know the rules, or who to support, (who ya goin' for?) but early on we pledged our support for Richmond and it was a good call because they hammered Melbourne something like 130-60. Great atmosphere and good fun- man those guys are fit! The game lasts 2 hours and they don't stop running!

Melbourne Cricket Ground - Aussie Rules

We spend 3 days in St Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne, which despite our initial reservations turned out to be a great place and we would have loved more time there. At first, St Kilda made us feel the way one does when they can remember who sang the original song first time round, or when they look in a mirror first thing on a Monday morning- old.
After the AFL game we headed back to a proper spit and sawdust bar to have a couple of VB's. In the bar were lots of 21 year old Irish folk living it up on their one year visas drinking jaegermeister to beat the band. Now, I (Eva) was born 40 and Barry is fast approaching 35 so for us these spring chickens made us feel really old...:o(

The following morning we headed off on a tour of the Great Ocean Road, which is a coast road running from Torquay (about 70km south of Melbourne) to Warrnambool (many many more kms south of Melbourne..) A coast road is a coast road I hear you cry! But no, the great ocean road was magnificent, and we could only imagine how fabulous it would be in the height of summer. As it happens, the day started out a bit dull and overcast and then brightened up in the afternoon.

12 apostles

Highlights included the 12 Apostles, a series of magnificent limestone sea stacks- one of which collapsed a couple of years ago, so now there are only 11, Lockard Ridge another series of unbelievable rock formations; The sea is really wild here, and it is known as the Shipwreck coast, where lots of people have died on the epic journey from Europe to Australia- so close! Although Barry won't commit to one, my highlight of the day was a trip to Maits Rest Rainforest, a cool, temperate rainforest in Otway National Park. The rainforest was such a calming, cool, soothing place, I cant do it justice by describing it, but to be surrounded by so much forest, including some of the world's tallest trees was so relaxing- I could have stayed there all day, except it was pretty cold, what with all that damp and no sun getting through. Magnificent. We also saw koala bears in the National Park, possibly the cutest things we have ever seen; and what a great life! Like the pandas in Beijing, their diet is pretty specific; they just eat eucalyptus leaves and as such have to sleep about 19 hours a day to digest it properly. They were gorgeous!

Rainforest 1

Our last full day in Melbourne was the first chance we got to take a proper look around St Kilda, and it's really lovely, a bit like malahide, or ranelagh by the sea for you southsoiders! Lots of bars and restaurants, a Sunday market along the promenade, a fairground with a pretty eerie big face at the entrance; it was a beautiful sunny day, and we were having a great time just strolling around taking it all in.

Monday 25th we flew to Alice Springs, right in the centre of Australia. Alice Springs has marketed itself very well as the hub for Uluru (ayers rock). Well, it is only 450km away... Alice Springs was the first place that we had not booked accommodation etc for in advance, and had hoped to arrive at the airport and be able to book a bus to Uluru and everything else that we needed. Unfortunately, all you could get in Alice Springs Airport was a beer and /or a rental car, so we got the latter, which turned out to be a good decision as it gave us so much freedom over the 3 days that we were here. We spent a night in Alice and drove to Uluru the following morning. A day in Alice is plenty, if just to see first hand the aboriginal town camps which house members of the indigenous communities. It's hard for us not to be voyeuristic about this; we have been absolutely fascinated by the aborigines and their placing in Australian society since we arrived. The Australian Government have recently completed an investigation into child sexual abuse among the communities and it appears to be a massive problem, particularly in the Northern Territory, where we are now. The governments plan to address the problem includes sending police, army members and doctors into the communities as well as controlling welfare payments so that money cant be spent on 'grog' or petrol . It would be interesting to know how much of this is being reported at home but basically it is on every TV and radio station and newspaper since we arrived. It's probably fair to say that non indigenous Australians struggle between guilt, a sense of duty but a lot of frustration in relation to the aborigines. Overall, the general message is that what the government is doing is right, if a little paternalistic. It's really easy for us to be critical of Australia and their treatment of the aborigines, but really, one can make a lot of comparisons to the traveller situation in Ireland. Anyway, more of that later, back to a Town called Alice. This part of the world ain't called the red centre for nothin'. It's red and dry. Alice Springs is located by the 'usually dry' Todd River. It's impossible to look at where the river should be and not feel the roof of your mouth go dry, like you were stuck in the desert and followed the map to where the Todd River should be only to find that there was no water. Its main street is unashamedly geared towards the tourists, lots of souvenir shops, tour centres and a few restaurants and dodgy bars. Alice Springs is also home to the MacDonnell Mountain Ranges and the HQ of the Flying Doctors, and ultimately, we enjoyed the time there - its Australia baby!

Sunset2

Driving directions to Uluru from Alice Springs are as follows:
Turn right on to the Stuart highway and then right at Erdlunda (about 200km later).And it's that easy! We took about 5 hours getting to Uluru with plenty of stops along the way. Tourists and campers are so well catered for here, toilet stops, bbq and camping facilities all along these major roads, it makes it so accessible., despite the fact that you are driving through quite possibly the most scorchingly, aridly inhospitable places in the world (anywhere we haven't been not included) It is so barren here, the only buildings are the hotel/cafe/post office/pub/shop at the rest stop- we wondered where the employees lived. We could drive 200km without passing another car- and this is on the road to Uluru; imagine what it's like when the road doesn't lead to a major tourist attraction. We saw some funky road kill on them there roads. Lots of Kangaroos, birds, and some cows at the side of the road who had just given up the ghost looking for the Todd River....

Uluru 3

Yulara is the Ayers rock resort which has the monopoly on all eatin' drinkin' sleepin' and shoppin' that one will do whilst at Uluru. All we could get was a hotel room for about 150 euro per night, which is pretty expensive, but it was a nice room and the resort has everything that one could need while here, albeit at inflated prices. So on to the rock! It rocks! Uluru is magnificent, so imposing on the landscape and the changes in its colour during sunset are magical. It goes from being a light brown to a blood red in a really short space of time. We walked around it- 10km which will tell you how big it is. The issue of climbing the rock was an interesting one. Everywhere tourists are asked not to climb the rock- from your guide book to the tickets to the national park, to the signs at the rock itself. The rock is considered a sacred site to the aboriginal people and the Lonely Planet describes climbing it as akin to climbing the altar at Notre Dame Cathedral. Yet, climbing it is not forbidden, and when we arrived at the rock we saw a trail of about 100 people going up and down what must have been a really steep, tough climb. We thought it was strange that people would climb it when it was requested that they not do so, but when we asked a guy who worked there why so many people did he said that 'if people see a rock they want to climb it'. I thought there was more to it than that, but nowt as queer as folk so maybe not. Interestingly enough, our second day at Uluru was day one of the governments intervention in the indigenous communities, and they began with the Mujilutu community who live in Uluru. There were lots of soldiers having their lunch at the Uluru coffee shop when we were there; strange and ironic, and sad too.

Uluru 2

Overall a fabulous few days, we drove back to Alice Springs and flew out on 28th June. Initially I (Eva) would have advised anybody travelling to Uluru to fly straight there to avoid the hassle of Alice Springs and the 450km journey. However in hindsight, the journey was almost as good as the destination and has made us really hungry to see more. It's just an amazing place- who'da thunk that we would be in the red centre of Australia? Next stop is Cairns, and upon advice from our learned traveller friends, we will be getting out of there quick smart and heading to port Douglas for a nice holiday. We need it ;O)

Barry's Cliff notes!
Sydney for a night!.. Very cold after being in Thailand. Got to see the harbour bridge and the opera house by night., Very Cool. Back to Sydney next week for more.

Melbourne: I love Melbourne, and to this point I love Most of Australia and the whole vibe of the place, Melbourne demonstrates this best. It is just cool, lots of coffee shops, bars ,backpackers etc . It seems to cater for everyone . Would live there in a heartbeat, if it was not the other side of the world. To be a bit boring the architecture here is brilliant amazing mix of old and new. Great Ocean Road is amazing. The WW1 soldiers built this on their return from battle and stayed together in their battalions so mates could stay together and work as in war. I think that demonstrates Australia to me, nice common sense. In most things!

Outback.. Alice Springs is worth a visit, It is worth it to see how the aborigines in the northern territories have been placed in compounds (for lack of a better word) outside the town. They sit around doing nothing in the barren land all day or wander around the town like ghosts. Mad and sad in one. Eva has covered the intervention above. Very interesting debate. 500k Drive was brilliant and gave us a first real sense of how massive Australia is, one forgets that it is a continent on it's own!
ULURU.. Just see the pics.. Amazing. We walked the circumference of the rock and suffered death by 1000 flies. Also see pics. To talk on the issue above, when we arrived at Uluru, there was a school tour there specifically to climb the rock!! This says it all to me about the respect for the indigenous people if a school is bringing them to climb it!!! In your face Abbos!!!!
Interesting side fact. China grows by the population of Australia per year.. 20M!
Hope you enjoy the photos, Barry's wildlife snaps will be on the next entry! Diving on the Great Barrier Reef here we come!!